Welcome to Business Consultant Weekly

Vol. 2 Issue # 15 April 12, 1999

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In this issue:

1) Tip of the Week

2) FEATURE ARTICLE: The Power of Personal Notes by Wanda Loskot

3) CLASSIFIEDS

4) FREE Resources

5) TIME SAVING TIP ***** NEW *****

6) MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGE: Take Joy in Your Mountains by William N Hodges

I'm running last week's tip again since several of you didn't receive the newsletter due to an error during mailing. If you didn't receive the newsletter and you'd like to read it, send a blank email message to mailto:BCWissue14@SmartBotPRO.NET

Here's another resource for getting your message in front of the masses. Remember, sales is a numbers game. What makes it really great is that it's completely FREE and depending on how well you promote it, your ad could be seen by thousands of buyers.

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The Power of Personal Notes by Wanda Loskot

The owner of a printing shop, asked me once how to get more referrals. To help her out I asked a few questions - among other things I wanted to know how does she keep in touch with her customers on a regular basis. "By monthly statements" - she said. She meant bills.

"Do you attach to those bills some sort of personal notes?" - I asked. She just looked at me in a funny way...

I suggested that she sends personal thank you notes to all of her clients once in a while - after all they pay her bills, so she should have enough to thank them for. She said that thank you notes are too common!

Too common??!! - I wanted to know how did she arrive at that conclusion. I know I don't get that many thank you notes and asked if she did. She said she didn't get many notes either.... Why then had she assumed that sending a note to a customer is such a common approach? She had a good answer for that. Her shop prints tons of thank you notes every day -- it is one of the most popular item on her order form. So, she assumed that everybody writes those notes all the time!

It is a mistake that many people make. Actually very few people in business ever send thank you notes and even fewer - and far between - do it on a regular basis. Oh, yes they do buy them, but they keep them in their drawers forever. In a meantime they look for extraordinary ways to WOW! the people around them to get attention and appreciation - and referrals.

There are not many things as powerful as personal notes. You see, personal notes build trust and relationships, the most important elements in any business. They demonstrate your commitment to your contacts and to the service you provide. They are also the perfect way to introduce new products and services to your customers. Writing notes is a cornerstone of any business.

It is nice when someone sends you a short note thanking you for your help on the project - isn't it? Doesn't it make you feel good - even great? Sure it does. Do you remember that salesman who dropped you a "thank you for your time" note? Aren't you more likely to talk with him again? Maybe even send him a referral?

Ah-hah! Referral... Now I got your attention!

Personal notes are even more powerful in the era of electronic communication. It takes only about three minutes to write a note, fold it, stick it in an envelope and mail it but the power of that message is awesome. When almost every one of your online competitors gave up on the snail-mail, you can reap the benefits of this ultimate success weapon. People who send personal notes are thought of as gracious, well mannered -- and since so few people do it -- also a clear cut above the rest. Not bad for just one dollar investment!

The power of personal notes is unquestionable. I suggest you send it to every important business contact - prospect, peer, vendor. But in order to be consistent and rewarded by your note writing, you must develop a systematic approach to it, without losing spontaneity. Here is my Five Step System that will make your notes effective:

1. Use a broad tip pen for a bold, easy to read message 2. Make the note short - maximum 3-5 lines 3. Develop your own unique close (rather than "sincerely") 4. Set a goal to write a minimum number of notes per day or per week,

To make your job even easier - use my Menu of 24 Personal Notes. You can retrieve this helpful tool for free from my autoresponder. Mailto:WandaWiz@netscape.net?subject=menu

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Wanda Loskot is business coach for self-employed professionals who LOVE what they do but HATE to sell! - register today to win one month of FREE coaching at http://loska.com - also subscribe to the award winning newsletter "Referrals Unlimited" mailto:ru@oaknetpub.com with SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of message

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"Don't Worry ... Be Backward"

How much time have you lost on things that, looking back, you know you should have foreseen? If you're like most of us, probably more than you like to admit. (Mea culpa...)

Why wait to look back on it? Start now!

Start by looking at your final goal and see what things you'll need to do to obtain that goal. Then work backwards through the process, looking for all the things that could go wrong. Often just the small shift in perspective is all that's needed to see the potholes before you hit them.

You'll very likely also spot areas that you can adapt and improve for additional profit centers that you might have missed just walking through things normally.

Problems avoided are time saved.

Hurry up and put it in reverse!

Reprinted from TalkBiz News. To subscribe (It's free), send any email to mailto:Newsletter@TalkBiz.com

Take Joy in Your Mountains copyright 1999 William N Hodges

Where I was born in Canada, it is so flat that it is necessary to dig drainage ditches every so many miles so the rain will drain off the land. Without the ditches, the fields would lay in puddles most of the year. Because there are no hills, the only things that break the horizon are the occasional building and a few trees. When you travel through that area, it is mile after mile of the same unbroken terrain. I hate to say it, but it's boring. The United States has places to compare with my home-Kansas for one. Travel through that state can also be boring and tedious. Nothing is unexpected because as they say in the song, "On a clear day you can see forever."

I don't think I would like a life that was analogous to travel in either place. I don't think I'd like to be able to see forever, as far as my life is concerned. In fact, I'm quite sure I don't really want to know what is going to happen tomorrow. You see, if something bad is going to happen, I would dread it and it would take much of the joy out of today. It is the surprises in life that make life worth living.

I am the type of person who salts his meal before he tastes it. I would rather have my food too salty than too bland. Lin Yutang in The Importance of Living wrote this about a bland existence. "Imagine a world in which there are no stories of murder in newspapers, everyone is so omniscient that no house ever catches fire, no airplane ever has an accident, no husband deserts his wife, no pastor elopes with a choir girl, no king abdicates his throne for love, no man changes his mind, and everyone proceeds to carry out with logical precision a career that he mapped out for himself at the age of ten-good-bye to this human world! All the excitement and uncertainty of life would be gone. There would be no literature because there would be no sin, no misbehavior, no human weakness, no upsetting passion, no prejudices, no irregularities, and, worst of all, no surprises."

I suspect there are those among you who would trade all your tomorrow's surprises for the life Lin Yutang describes, but it's not for me. If I were to analogize about the type of life I would like to a road trip, I would have to say that it would be like driving through the Great Smoky Mountains, where every few miles I came over a new crest and was treated to a whole new view. Overcoming mountains is not an easy task, but there is a sense of accomplishment when those mountains are overcome. So it is with unexpected troubles. When they pop up, they can be difficult to handle, but when you overcome them, you have a sense of accomplishment.

All surprises don't have to be bad. Think how boring it would be to know what was inside every gift box at Christmas. That, in fact, may be the best way to look at life, as a gift box that God gives us every morning-a surprise present for us to do with it as we will. Whether the present turns out good or bad is not in the gift but rather in how we deal with it. Some of the worst things that happened to me, or at least seemed at the time to be the worst things, have turned out to be the best things that have happened to me. I either overcame them or learned from them. In either case, as a result of them, I became stronger.

Philosopher Eric Hoofer wrote, "The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty." Take joy in your mountains for they are what make life exciting and, more importantly, worth living.

***********

If this column was sent to you by a friend and you would enjoy receiving a motivational message each month please send your name, city, state/province, country and e-mail address to Bill Hodges at hodgesb@dma.org . If you would like to see back issues please go to our web site at http://www.BillHodges.com

Newsletter/Newspaper editors can buy 100 of these columns on disc for $29.95 for use in their publications. See our web site for details or send us an e-mail request for details.

Note: Should you wish to reprint this column in a club or organization news letter the following applies.

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3. At the end of the article please insert the following in no smaller than 10 point type: Bill Hodges is nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and columnist. If you enjoyed this article, you will enjoy his book Within Your Reach which contains 60 such articles on positive thinking available either in print or a three cassette audio tape. If ordering from your local bookstore, .reference ISBN #0-9622717-0-5, or you may order directly by sending your check for $4.95 USCurrency plus ($1.30 USA $3.00 Other)for the printed book or $20.00 plus ($3.00 USA $6.00 other) for shipping to Hodges Seminars International, P O Box 22 Fairborn OH 45324. Or order by Visa or Mastercharge at his Web site http://www.BillHodges.com

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